Newbish screwing with the Joye510 USB Passthru

[CorvusDrake]

I've been vaping on a Joye 510 for a couple of months now, and I ordered a USB passthrough early on. Unfortunately, what I was hoping was the battery cutting out turned out to be a broken wire inside the crappy cord that this PT has in its assembly.

I'm short on tools at the moment, but I popped open the battery casing anyway. I also confirmed the break to be somewhere near the interface piece (the part that looks like a battery), so I clipped that section, from the back of the battery casing to the base of the interface piece (leaving a good bit of length for stripping).

I underestimated exactly how terrible the wire was. When stripping the leads, I ended up tearing wire with the insulation near the base of the interface, making it far too short to do much with it.

USB Batt Interface/Mouthpiece
{[0]------[xxxx]----x x-[[[[]]]]

My original intent was just to replace the damaged length with a solid copper wire. I was disappointed to find that rather than a solid cable, the existing leads were fibrous wire. This means that with the length at the interface too short, I can't just twist and cap.

I found this frustrating, and with the aforementioned shortage of tools, had trouble removing the plastic base from the back of the interface. Combine frustration with being a newb and my solution was obvious.

After trying to boil the interface in water to cause the plastic to expand and pop loose (didn't work), I resorted to the caveman tools. I lit the little ....... plastic end on fire.


Disappointment #2: There was apparently a ton of extra wire in there, and rather than cut it or bind it near the switch (smart), it was all tied in a knot and resting on the back of the plastic I had set on fire (stupid). If anyone has broken their PT of this type by accidentally pulling the wire, this is why; the knot is the only thing keeping you from just yanking the wires through, other than the solder to the switch.

Well, needless to say, the insulation on these wires burned off a bit as well. So now I have two tiny fiber leads again.

I tried to jury-rig this setup with my solid wire anyway, but the leads hanging out of the interface piece are too short to tie. I also can't figure out how to dislodge the switch; it must be in there pretty good if I can't get it out by submerging the assembly in boiling water for about 15 minutes. Still, I need to get to that switch if I hope to replace these terrible cords with some high-conductivity copper wire.

So my questions are:

1: How the hell do I get the switch out?

2: I have a stack of old, working 1000mA 3.7v batteries from old LG phones. Would they fry my atomizer if I used them as the "capacitor" battery and made a new style passthrough?

3: Was there a better way than fire? (Better...not more fun. There's rarely anything more fun than fire)

 

[jlmanno]

Not really well built hopefully someone experienced will chime in. I was always curious as to wether or not the battery could be eliminated all together to get higher voltage?

 

[lostdaze]

LoL, sorry to hear about your 510 pass-thru. I agree the wire is too thin and the 510 pass-thru is rather low in quality.

After only 2 weeks with mine I noticed some of the insulation broken away the interface piece. I will no longer plug it into my computer but have still been using it via electrical outlet with power adapter.

Ive yet to try and repair it as Im afraid I will destroy it, so for now it stays as is.
When it completely breaks I will attempt to fix it if I can,

lol, I keep your experiance in mind when doing so and refrain from boiling or using fire in the dismantling of it.

I also have a V4L pass-thru that is much better built with thicker wire and longer cable and it was actually cheaper than the 510 pass-thru. Yet I like the 510 PT for dripping with.

Good luck with your repair.

 

[CorvusDrake]

From what I've read, eliminating the battery, you run into two issues:

1. The battery actually supplements insufficient power coming from the USB 2.0 port, and charges between puffs

2. The battery serves as a voltage regulator to prevent frying your motherboard.

As for the first, I came up with a fix, but the second is my worry. I've been considering making a PT that connects to more than one USB port (or even connects Firewire) but without the regulation, a puff could lead to a laptop becoming a paperweight.

Otherwise I'd say screw it and strip the atomizer's connection off the interface piece and just hook it up to USB cables.

Edit: Has anyone else had more success taking these things apart? and what about that cell batt?

 

[CorvusDrake]

After cutting into the metal, I managed to finally get the switch out, though apparently it was using some of the same glue that holds the atomizer connection in to hold the edges of the switch together; the switch crumbled once out of the metal housing. This can be worked around, obviously.

How this thing works is a small miracle. The wires were barely insulated at this point and were not twisted; they were still spread fibers until they reached a solder-tip connection point. Unfortunately, the removal of the switch also removed the only decent wire in the assembly; the two leads connected to the back of the connector. Also, the glue, while burning easily, is very difficult to affect where it holds the connector in. I can't get it free.

Is there a *better* 510 PT out there? I guess I've entered into the land of needing to build one, because I don't want to dump $20-$30 into another flimsy piece made of cheap speaker wire and a battery connection.

Am I right that the tech is basically this:

[}USB Neg -------[battery]-----}[===*switch*=]|| <--Atomizer Cnx
[}USB Pos ---------------------}[===========]||